Page 49 of Enslaved By Magic

Epilogue

(Amari)

It was Sarah who drove her over. She was visibly nervous, and the conversation, when it came, was measured and careful. Amari understood that, and she wanted to make Sarah feel more comfortable, but she wasn’t sure how. The strain between them had been an unfortunate side effect of what Amari had learned, and it was something that would take time to work through.

When they arrived, Amari made no move to get out of the car. “I’m scared,” she whispered.

Sarah turned sideways to face her, reaching out to take her hand. “It’s going to be okay, Amari. I promise. If you’re not ready for this, we can—”

But Amari was already shaking her head. It had been six long months and having made the decision to return, she couldn’t back down now. “No, I can do it.” The words sounded a lot more confident than she felt. What if Luke didn’t want her back? What if finding out he was going to be a father scared him off?

What if? So many things could happen, but she felt like one way or the other she’d get through it. She just had to take the first step, and then another, and finally she reached the door and rang the bell. Sarah was waiting in the car behind her, her escape route if she needed one, but the moment Luke opened the door, she knew she had no reason to leave ever again.

“Amari?” His eyes rounded and he just stared at her for a long time, like he was drinking in the sight of her.

“Hi. I—I came back,” she said finally. More to fill the silence than anything.

“I wasn’t sure you would. I mean I hoped, but then the postcards stopped coming and I…” He trailed off, swallowing hard. “You look good, beautiful I mean. Like always.” The words were breathless, almost gasping.

But he was just making awkward small talk, he hadn’t really gotten a good look at anything but her face yet. She’d worn a long coat, baggy in front and was standing with a slight forward lean so that her condition wasn’t obvious.

“Do I?” She laughed and shook her head. The heavy braid thumped against her back reassuringly, and she wondered if she was going to have to be the first to reach out, the first to make contact, but before she could make the attempt, Luke was moving forward to embrace her with an enthusiastic grasp.

She thought he’d intended to pick her up, maybe swing her around. His face was all bright smiles and his dark eyes were liquid with emotion, but as soon as his arms went around her, he froze, holding her in a position that must have strained his back, awkward as it was.

“Something wrong, Luke?” she asked carefully. She wondered what he thought. He surely noticed something, but would he understand what the changes in her body were? Was he just thinking she’d gained weight? Women did do that when they weren’t frozen in immortality, but she was confident he’d have loved her anyway if that was the case. But it wasn’t and a baby was an altogether different thing.

“Yeah, sure. But…” He tilted his head, giving her an odd look and then let her go. He reached down and began to slowly undo the buttons of her coat, one at a time so he could push it open in front and look at the surprise she’d brought him.

“You—you’re pregnant.”

“Yes.”

“I thought—you said you couldn’t get…”

She sighed, offering a small shrug. “Things changed when you made the third wish. We were having sex an awful lot, and then with the wish, my body came out of stasis and, well things took the usual course, I suppose.”

He gave her a serious look, with some concern, asking hesitantly, “Are you okay with it? I mean, are you happy?”

To his credit he didn’t ask if it was his, and she wouldn’t have blamed him if he had. It was a valid question given that they hadn’t had sex after he’d made the wish and she’d been gone for six months. “How could I be anything but happy about carrying your child, Luke? I love you. I hoped that it would be possible after, if things went well between us, I thought someday we might—but I guess this little one was in a hurry. I suppose conception must have happened shortly before. If you hadn’t freed me, I imagine the egg would have been reabsorbed after a while.” At least that was her best guess.

She smiled, her hand moved to stroke the swell of her belly fondly, before she reached out and took his hand in hers, and then pressed it to the hard roundness. “Can you feel? Our child has been kicking up a storm the past few days.”

Luke was looking a little shell-shocked; stunned, but not angry or upset. The baby chose that moment to give a good solid kick and he jumped backward like a startled cat. “Wow! That felt so weird,” he said, half-laughing in his surprise. He had a dazed smile on his face as he slowly reached out again. “Does it hurt when—he?” He paused, looking up in question.

“I didn’t want to know the gender yet. Not until you could be there with me,” she explained.

He looked delighted at that and nodded. “Does it hurt when the baby kicks like that?” he asked.

“Sometimes, just a little. There’s some stretching, but it’s a new thing, so I still get excited every time,” she explained.

His eyes were focused there, as though he could see the baby forming inside, and she caught his attention with a soft, “Luke?” When he looked up, she offered him a seductive smile saying, “Aren’t you ever going to kiss me?”

The sheepish look on his face was only visible for a second because he moved quickly to pull her into his arms and when her head tilted back, he followed up with the most intensely passionate kiss of her life. Her first kiss as a mortal woman, as it happened.

It took some maneuvering, with her bulging stomach getting in the way, but then everything clicked perfectly, and the world emptied of everything but him. She didn’t hear Sarah driving away. She no longer felt the cold, not with his warm body pressed against hers. All she knew was him and the way his love surrounded them like an unbreakable barrier against the world.

He released his grip slowly, backing up a step with a look on his face that worried her. “Listen, Amari, there’s something I should tell you before you—well, before you decide to stay. Uncle Esra dug up some old family journals and they—”

She reached up, placed a finger across his lips and pressed it there gently to stop him. “I already know about it, Luke. He told me too and I admit it was a shock. I wanted to hate him, and you; but it doesn’t matter anymore. That was another time, another life back in the dark ages. All I care about is what’s happening now.” She was being completely honest. The fact that his first thought was to tell her the truth meant more to her than all the dirty little secrets his uncle had unearthed, and it soothed away the last of her doubts.

“Are you sure? You don’t hate me for what he did to you?” Luke asked, with a desperately hopeful tone in his voice.

“He isn’t you, and if I held you responsible for his petty revenge, then I’d be doing the same thing he did. You’re a good man, a better man than he was, and I’m having your baby. What could matter more than that?” she asked.

With a proud and somewhat possessive grin on his face, he scooped her up into his arms and then paused, one eyebrow going up. “Wait, dark ages? How old are you anyway?” the mock outrage in his voice made her laugh and she was still snorting and giggling as he carried her into the house.

Magic had brought them here and there was a certain odd kind of amusement in knowing that she owed everything she had now to a cursed bottle and a vindictive jinn—but from this point on, she earnestly hoped that the only magic in her life was the simple kind created by two people in love.

The End

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